A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS
None of the other girls had taken part in this discussion; but they all
chanced to be members of the party that had partaken of the famous
spread in Number 30 when Nancy's money paid for the goodies out of the
enjoyment of which she had been crowded.
They were all, save Cora, paying the price, like Nancy, of being found
out of their rooms after curfew by the principal of Pinewood Hall. All
had suffered alike. Cora had been the only one to escape.
As it chanced, Cora had _not_ been out of her room. The girls were not
punished for eating ice cream and macaroons in secret, and none of them
had been questioned about the incident save Nancy herself.
They had all, however, urged by Cora and Grace Montgomery, been sure
that Nancy had "got even" by reporting them to the teachers. Maybe, if
Cora had not so urged this--had not been so confident of Nancy's crime,
in fact--the other girls might have stopped to think that _she_ was
being punished equally with themselves, and that only Cora had escaped.
Just the same, some of them might on this evening have taken Nancy's
part had not Cora Rathmore made so much of the report upon Nancy's
character that Grace Montgomery had received from a friend in Malden.
Nobody had seen the letter (which came under cover for Grace from her
sister at home, and was therefore not examined by Madame Schakael) save
Grace herself and Cora. The latter had flown into a passion immediately,
and had declared that she would no longer remain in the same room with a
"charity foundling."
Without stopping to think, these other girls were carried away by Cora's
eloquence. When Nancy turned to face them from the lower stair of the
flight leading up to the West Side dormitories, she was like a sheep
cornered by a pack of dogs.
The shrill voice of the angry Cora carried much farther than she had
intended, however. Suddenly, at the top of the flight, appeared Corinne
Pevay, captain of the West Side.
"What is the trouble, _mes enfants_?" she demanded. "Why all the
outburst of variegated sounds, Cora? Is it a convention of the Freshman
Calliope Society; or merely a discussion of the question: Votes for
Women?"
Cora had become silent instantly. Nancy was winking back her tears, and
would not turn around. The other girls did not feel called upon to
speak.
"'Silence was her answer; Low she bowed her head!'" chanted Corinne, in
a sing-song tone. "It sounded like a washerwomen's convention, and now
it has suddenly changed to a Quaker meeting. Come! what's the trouble?"
and she spoke more sharply as she began to descend the stairs.
"None of your business, Miss!" snapped the black-eyed girl, made even
angrier at this interruption.
"Wrong Cora--wrong. It _is_ my business. Somebody will call me to
account for it if you West Side infants raise ructions in the main hall.
You know that. So, out with the difficulty."
Cora still remained scornfully silent.
"It is about Nancy, here, again, I suppose," said Corinne, finally
reaching Nancy's side, and resting one hand lightly on the latter's
shoulders. "You girls seem unable to annoy anybody else but Nancy
Nelson. And if I were she"--she was coolly looking around the group and
soon identified them as the party that had been punished with Nancy over
Number 30's spread,--"I never would stand it.
"She is too easy.... That is what is the matter with her. When Madame
Schakael found her in Jennie's room that night she ought to have told
just how she had been crowded out of her own room--and after paying for
all the goodies you girls stuffed yourselves with, too!
"Why, I'd be ashamed! She took her punishment and never said a word.
Jennie can prove _that_. And all you little fools have laid your
punishment to _her_. And after eating her spread----"
"That isn't so!" snapped Cora, in a rage.
"What isn't so?"
"She knows she's going to be paid back for what she spent on the
supper," declared Cora.
"Good! I hope she will be paid back. But you can't pay her back for the
mean way you have treated her," declared the senior, with some warmth.
"I don't want to! I don't want to!" almost screamed Cora. "Do you think
I am going to have anything to do with a girl who doesn't even know who
she _is_?"
"What do you mean, Cora?" asked Corinne, quickly.
"That girl," cried Cora, pointing a quivering finger at the silent
Nancy, "was just found by somebody when she was a baby and was sent to
a charity school--the Higbee Endowment School in Maiden, it's called.
"She's a foundling. Her parents deserted her--or they were sent to
jail--and other people sent this girl to school. She knows it's so! She
daren't say it isn't!" continued the enraged Cora.
"She's just a little Miss Nobody. If such girls as she, without family
or friends, are going to come to Pinewood Hall, I am sure _my_ mother
won't want me to stay here. And one thing I _am_ very sure of," pursued
Cora. "I will _not_ remain in Number 30 with this--this nameless girl
that no one knows anything about."
"Quite so, Miss Rathmore," observed a quiet voice behind the excited
Cora. "What you say is emphatic, at least; and it really seems to be in
earnest. Therefore, it shall have my respectful consideration."
A horrified silence fell upon the group of girls at the foot of the
stairs.
"Miss Pevay," said the Madame, calmly, "bring Nancy Nelson and Cora
Rathmore to my office at once. What is that on the floor?"
The little lady pointed to Nancy's coat and cap. Nancy, with dry lips,
told her.
"Have you been out without permission at this hour, Nancy?" asked the
Madame.
"No, Madame."
"Bring the coat and cap. At once!" commanded the Madame, and led the way
into her own suite of offices.
Like three prisoners bound for the stake, the three girls followed. Even
Corinne felt that she had done wrong in allowing this squabble to
continue in the public hall.
The other girls did not even dare whisper at first after the Madame and
the three girls were behind the closed door of the Madame's anteroom. It
was seldom that the principal of Pinewood Hall took the punishment, or
interrogation, of offenders into her own hands. When she did it was a
solemn moment for all concerned.
And the girls gathered at the bottom of the West Side stairway felt this
solemnity. They whispered together fearfully until suddenly Jennie Bruce
burst in from outdoors.
"Hullo, girls! what's gone wrong?" she demanded, swinging a small bag in
her hand.
"You may well say 'What's gone wrong?'" declared Judy Craig, Belle
Macdonald's chum. "The Madame caught poor Cora in an awful stew----"
"Huh!" grunted Jennie. "Only Cora? Well! she can stand it, I guess."
"Well, I don't know but she's right," wheezed Belle, who was also of
the party. "They ought not to let such girls into a school like Pinewood
Hall."
"Hul-_lo!_" exclaimed Jennie, suddenly interested. "Who's been treading
on _your_ tootsies, Belle?"
"Why, it's that Nelson girl," snapped Judy.
"And what's Nancy been doing?"
"Well, it's what she _is_," exclaimed another, eagerly. "You are pretty
thick with her, Jen. Do you know who she is?"
Jennie nodded.
"You don't!"
"I know just as much about her as she knows about herself," declared
Jennie, with gravity.
"And that's just nothing," cried Judy, with a little laugh. "That's what
Cora says."
"And who told Cora?" asked Jennie.
"Grace. And Grace knows!"
"And who told Chicken-Little-Ducky-Lucky-Goosy-Poosy-Montgomery that the
sky had fallen?" demanded the sarcastic Jennie.
"Did you know that Nancy Nelson came here from a charity school, and
that she has no folks?" asked Belle Macdonald, with considerable
bitterness.
"Yes," said Jennie, nodding.
"Well! what do you suppose your mother would say if she knew you were
familiar with such a girl?"
Jennie suddenly became grave. "She'd say," declared the fun-loving girl,
her voice shaking a little, "she'd say: 'That's a good girl, Jennie.
She's an orphan--be kind to her.'"
"Oh, rats!" cried Judy. "She doesn't even know she's an orphan. Cora
says she believes Nancy's parents are in jail."
"Maybe Cora has a wider acquaintance among jails than the rest of us,"
said Jennie airily, preparing to go upstairs.
"And what was Nancy doing with her hat and coat at this hour?" put in
another girl, craftily. "The Madame noticed that right away."
"The Madame!" gasped Jennie, stopping instantly.
"Oh, they've all gone into the office," said Belle, eagerly.
"Who--all?"
"Corinne and Cora and Nancy."
"They've caught Nancy because she was going to run away?" cried Jennie.
"Run away?" repeated the other girls in chorus.
The angry Jennie shook the bag in their faces.
"Do you know what _this_ is?" she demanded. "Do you know what you girls
by your meanness almost drove Nancy Nelson to?
"I'll tell you! She knows you all dislike her--hate her, in fact. She is
so unhappy here that she was going to run away from Pinewood Hall and
get work somewhere--that is what she was going to do.
"She packed this bag and tossed it out of the window, and then she ran
down to the door intending to slip away. But she remembered that she had
been forbidden to leave the building at this time of day, and that
Madame Schakael had trusted her.
"So Nance wouldn't break her word, and I found her crying in the back
hall there, and told her I would bring back her bag. That's the truth!
You girls have driven her to all that.
"And now," continued the wrathful Jennie, "I'm going in there to tell
Madame Schakael all about it. You girls don't want to associate with
Nancy because she is an orphan and has no home? Well, _I_ don't want to
associate with _you_ because you are all too mean to bother with! There
now!"
And the excited Jennie came down the steps, strode across the hall and
entered the anteroom of the principal's office, closing the door with a
bang.